Thought Theater

SPLC: Immigration Debate Fueling Racism genre: Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

The Southern Poverty Law Center has an interesting article on their site about the impact of the increasingly heated immigration debate. You can find the full article here. Prior Thought Theater postings on the immigration issue can be found here, here, and here. Some excerpts from the SPLC follow.

May 17, 2006 — The raging national debate over immigration is stoking the fires of racist extremism across the country. Neo-Nazis and other white supremacists are ratcheting up the intensity of their bloodthirsty "race war" rhetoric, and violent hate crimes against Hispanics, regardless of their immigration status, appear to be on the rise.

"The immigration furor has been critical to the growth we've seen in hate groups over the last several years," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which recently reported a 33 percent growth in hate groups over a five-year period, from 602 in 2000 to 803 in 2005.

"Hate groups think they've found an issue with racial overtones and a real resonance with the American public, and they are exploiting it as effectively as they can," he said. "They're trying to generate a hostile social climate that fosters bigotry and violence towards all Hispanics, whether they're in the country illegally or not."

On April 3, a prominent anti-immigration leader in Arizona secretly contacted the nation's largest neo-Nazi organization to urge its leaders to launch a campaign of violence and harassment against undocumented immigrants. Border Guardians founder Laine Lawless, who has been interviewed on CNN and Fox News, sent an e-mail to Mark Martin, commander of the Western Ohio unit of the National Socialist Movement. The e-mail was titled, "How to GET RID OF THEM." The e-mail detailed 11 suggestions for ways to terrorize immigrants.

On March 27, New Jersey-based neo-Nazi radio host Hal Turner called for the mass murder of Hispanics and the assassination of U.S. senators who support guest worker programs. "All of you who think there's a peaceful solution to these invaders are wrong. We're going to have to start killing these people," Turner said.